Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series eBook

The Government of India keeps its Political Agents
scattered over the native states in small jungle stations.
It furnishes them with maharajas, nawabs, rajas, and
chuprassies, according to their rank, and it usually
throws in a house, a gaol, a doctor, a volume of Aitchison’s
Treaties, an escort of native Cavalry, a Star of India,
an assistant, the powers of a first-class magistrate,
a flag-staff, six camels, three tents, and a salute
of eleven or thirteen guns. In very many cases
the Government of India nominates a Political Agent
to the rank of Son-to-a-Lieut.-Governor, Son-in-Law-to-a-Lieut.-Governor,
Son-to-a-member-of-Council, or Son-to-an-agent-to-the-Governor-General.
Those who are thus elevated to the Anglo-Indian peerage
need have no thought for the morrow what they shall
do, what they shall say, or wherewithal they shall
be supplied with a knowledge of Oriental language
and occidental law. Nature clothes them with
increasing quantities of gold lace and starry ornaments,
and that charming, if unblushing, female—­Lord
Lytton begs me to write “maid”—­Miss
Anglo-Indian Promotion, goes skipping about among
them like a joyful kangaroo.

The Politicals are a Greek chorus in our popular burlesque,
“Empire.” The Foreign Secretary is
the prompter. The company is composed of nawabs
and rajas (with the Duke of Buckingham as a “super").
Lord Meredith is the scene-shifter; Sir John, the
manager. The Secretary of State, with his council,
is in the stage-box; the House of Commons in the stalls;
the London Press in the gallery; the East Indian Association,
Exeter Hall, Professor Fawcett, Mr. Hyndman, and the
criminal classes generally, in the pit; while those
naughty little Scotch boys, the shock-headed Duke
and Monty Duff, who once tried to turn down the lights,
pervade the house with a policeman on their horizon.
As we enter the theatre a dozen chiefs are dancing
in the ballet to express their joy at the termination
of the Afghan War. The political choreutae
are clapping their hands, encouraging them by name
and pointing them out to the gallery.

The government of a native state by clerks and chuprassies,
with a beautiful faineant Political Agent for
Sundays and Hindu festivals, is, I am told, a thing
of the past. Colonel Henderson, the imperial
“Peeler,” tells me so, and he ought to
know, for he is a kind of demi-official superintendent
of Thugs and Agents. Nowadays, my informant assures
me, the Political Agents undergo a regular training
in a Madras Cavalry Regiment or in the Central India
Horse, or on the Viceroy’s Staff, and if they
have to take charge of a Mahratta State they are obliged
to pass an examination in classical Persian poetry.
This is as it ought to be. The intricacies of
Oriental intrigue and the manifold complication of
tenure and revenue that entangle administrative procedure
in the protected principalities, will unravel themselves
in presence of men who have enjoyed such advantages.